Sheriff Gregory Ahern wants to put Alameda
County on the map as the first jurisdiction in California to use surveillance
drones for law enforcement purposes, turning to technology previously
used to hunt insurgents in Afghanistan that would allow police to peek
inside buildings to detect heat sources of people or the lights of indoor
pot growing operations.

Although Sheriff Ahern promised that
the drones would only be used in "emergency" situations such
as high speed chases, he
told NBC News that the devices could also be used for "proactive
policing," including scanning buildings for heat sources such as
people or lights that could indicate illegal marijuana growing operations.

The drones, which cost $50,000-$100,000
dollars, weigh just four pounds and can stream live video back to the
operator. The Sheriff's office is looking into whether a Homeland Security
"community policing" grant can be utilized to cover the cost
of the devices.

The ACLU points out that the drones
violate the 4th Amendment because they allow police surveillance of
private property without a warrant.

“Drone manufacturers are also
considering offering police the option of arming these remote-controlled
aircraft with weapons like rubber bullets, Tasers, and tear gas,”
the group said in a statement.

The Sheriff's office will join with
30 other law enforcement agencies later this month for its annual “Urban
Shield” preparedness exercise, during which different versions
of the drones will be field tested.

After Congress passed the Federal Aviation
Administration reauthorization earlier this year, requiring the FAA
to permit the operation of drones weighing 25 pounds or less, observers
predicted that anything up to 30,000 spy drones could be flying
in U.S. skies by 2020.

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As
we reported earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security
announced in a solicitation that it would be testing small spy drones
at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, signaling that the devices will be used for
"public safety" applications in the near future.

Much larger drones are already being
used in law enforcement operations across the country. The
most infamous case involved the Brossart family in North Dakota,
who were targeted for surveillance with a Predator B drone last year
after six missing cows wandered onto their land. Police had already
used the drone, which is based at Grand Forks Air Force Base, on two
dozen occasions beforehand.

The
U.S. Army recently tested a football field-sized blimp over the
city of New Jersey. The blimp can fly for a period of 21 hours and “is
equipped with high-tech sensors that can monitor insurgents from above.”

Recently
released FAA documents obtained by the Center
for Investigative Reporting revealed that the FAA gave the green light
for surveillance drones to be used in U.S. skies despite the fact that
during the FAA’s own tests the drones crashed numerous times even
in areas of airspace where no other aircraft were flying.

The documents illustrate how the drones pose a huge
public safety risk, contradicting a recent coordinated PR
campaign on behalf of the drone industry which sought to portray
drones as safe, reliable and privacy-friendly.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor
and writer for Prison Planet.com.
He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in
host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.